


Twist o' Fate

by 1anioh



Category: Rise of the Guardians (2012)
Genre: AU verses, Boredom, Crash of the verses, F/M, Gen, Gender!Swapped a few characters, Horror, It starts out kinda normal, Lonliness, M/M, Multi, There is a whole lot of everything being mixed together, Violence, eventually
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-08-29
Updated: 2013-09-25
Packaged: 2017-12-25 00:02:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,101
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/946275
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/1anioh/pseuds/1anioh
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Jack is a very energetic kid. 300 hundred years of no-one to play with and wham-o! Suddenly friends! Or at least that’s the way it’s supposed to be.  Everyone is far too busy to spend time with Jack though, and the loneliness fueled boredom has him borrowing a snowglobe, wishing to be somewhere else. Somewhere, anywhere where someone will pay attention to him…</p>
<p>Too bad the place he gets sent is really the worst place ever.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Big bad bowl of not now

Chapter 1:  
(Or that time it all got started)

-

At first it had been amazing - for the first time in his life Jack was apart of something. Something big and important. He had friends that he could visit whenever he wanted, friends with warm homes and extra beds that they always seemed willing to share. 

Jack sighed out a chuckle as the wind tugged on the frayed blue edges of his hoodie. She was bored with just sitting here in the top of an old burned out tree, waiting for Jack to do something. Right, at least he always had the wind to keep him company. Jack knocked the branch he was sitting on with his staff, watching spirals of frost bloom outward. Frost naturally formed around Jack, it didn’t really matter where he was, and honestly it wasn’t always something he could control.

So the first time Jack had accidently iced over a wall of memories in Toothiana’s palace she had laughed it off. Brushing some ice off of Jack’s shoulder, she’d told him to be careful and to pay more attention. The second time he’d frozen over a waterfall to create a slide for Baby Tooth and her sisters had gotten him a frown and discussion about how while it was good to have fun, all of the work had to be finished first. So by the time he’d iced over a set of hallways a couple of weekends later during a game of chase Tooth had had enough. Jack had tried to apologize but Toothiana gently told him that he was not to come back for a while. Not until football season was over anyways. 

It was the same with the others; Sandy just wanted to sleep when he finally got back to his island, whereas Jack would be all revved up and ready for a game. Sandy was the best at coming up with new games. Unfortunately the short man tended to get less cheerful the longer he went without sleep. Jack figured the only reason Sandy had even put up with him for as long as he had was because of Jack’s baby face. He looked like a 13 year old - and emotionally he was still, kinda, but really, he could’a handled it if Sandy had just told him he needed to sleep. And Jack didn’t even want to remember the one failed attempt at talking with the mermaids. He still had bad dreams about that day. The stupid kangaroo hadn’t even let him in to visit him. Jack had knocked politely on every door he came across the next couple of years but a resounding silence always answered him. 

North had lasted the longest in putting up with him. Always waving away the complaining yetis who pointed at messes then Jack. Ignored the elves who seemed far too eager to stick tongues onto a frozen companion to become stuck themselves. Cheerfully waving off Jacks stammered apologies when he’d frozen over a production line trying to catch an elf who’d run off with his candy-cane. Nope. It wasn’t until the yeti’s held a workers strike that North had said anything. As long as Jack was there, the yeti’s wouldn’t build toys. So Jack had to go. It wasn’t that Jack was bad, North had explained, it’s just that Jack was very active and with everyone being too busy to keep an eye on him it was best for Jack to go play out in the fields, with children. That had been three months ago. Apparently though the Jack ban was still in place, because there hadn’t been any word from anyone asking him to come visit. 

Jack’s stomach twisted at the memories of doors closing in his face. It was one thing when people couldn’t see him and he hadn’t dodged fast enough, it was another when he was being told to go get lost for a while. Jack leaned back against the tree, staring up at the evening sky. The moon was a sliver, still barely risen. Stars would be showing soon, and with autumn fast approaching, his frost patterns would be able to stick around till morning. 

Really, did everyone have to be so damn serious all the time? Jack snorted. It wasn’t that he didn’t understand that he was annoying people but the energy that would spin through him every time someone was in the same room as him, was able to talk and touch him, made it almost impossible to do anything other then race around in circles. 

A blast of wind jerked Jack off his tree branch with a surprised cry. It turned into a laugh when the wind grabbed him and tossed him upwards though, sending him floating along to the west.  
“Right, pay attention to you. I got it.” Jack rolled over on the wind, reaching over and bopped a particular gust, laughing. “Catch me if you can slow poke”, Jack pushed upwards and raced away, the wind chasing his heels. 

-

It was about a week later that Jack found himself drifting back towards the North pole. Jack had kicked a passing cloud in frustration when he realized where he had been going.  
But, his mind argued, just a peek wouldn’t hurt, and it wasn’t like North had banned him from ever coming back. He would just pop in, hang out for an hour and then leave. That sounded reasonable and, Jack swore to himself, he would be on his best behavior. No icing anything. Jack took off before any niggling doubts could argue against his sound decision. He let a grin form as he pushed the wind faster, no this was totally a good idea. It’d only take a couple of hours to get there and there was probably be cookies ready to for him to steal. 

-

This had been a terrible idea. First the yeti at the front door had slammed the door shut on Jack’s face when he’d knocked, then the yeti at the back door had done the exact same thing. They hadn’t even given him a chance to say hi, rude. So Jack had floated up to the top floor, searching for an open window to drop down in through. He’d found one, a couple of halls away from the musical manufacturing zone, where it sounded like drum kits were being tested. He’d careful iced the windows lock, keeping the window frozen open, in case he needed to make a quick escape. Jack had made it all of two steps before the sound of uprouse laughter filtered up to him. Was that North? What was so funny? The end of the hallway had a balcony that overlooked the globe room, Jack carefully snuck over and peered over the edge, curious. 

The sound of Tooth’s laughter had been like a punch to the gut. Jack stared down at all four (well three plus a kangaroo) of his friends sitting around a fireplace laughing and drinking eggnog. It looked like Baby Tooth was wrapping a box of some sort. Jack shrank back away from the sight, confusion warring with the urge to burst into tears. Why? What was happening? How come everyone was here? 

Why hadn’t he been invited? 

The crackle of ice crawling along the wooden floors drew Jacks attention towards it. He stared at blankly for a few moments before he realized that he was causing it. Jumping up, away from the mess he was making and the scene below Jack turned and fled back down the hallway, running for the window. He wasn’t crying. He was a 316 year old spirit who had saved the world, he did not cry because his friends hadn’t invited him over for eggnogg. When Jack tripped on the hallway carpet (uneven, shoddy, stupid) and clattered into a nearby doorway (big, stupid, ugly door anyways), he sat there on the floor rubbing his nose (hurts, stupid, maybe someoneheard?) and fought the urge to turn the entire upper floor into a giant snowfield. 

That was when the door had creaked open. The edge of the door had bumped into Jacks staff and frost ferns had instantly raced up the front of it. Jack shuffled out of the way, crawling to his feet and closing the door firmly before turning away. Jack made it all the way to window before a loud pop and creak had him spinning about - staff raised in defense. There wasn’t anything there. Except for the door that Jack had closed was open again, which was weird. Nervousness fluttered through him, the window was right there - he could leave, find a nice tree and pretend that his friends weren’t giant jerks. 

Jack chewed on his lip, holding his staff carefully in front of him he edged around the corner of the door, before blowing out a breath and peering inside. Jack huffed out a laugh. A closet. It was just dumb, broom closet with nothing but brooms inside. Shaking his head, Jack stepped back, closing the door when a sparkle caught his eye. A snow globe. There was a snow globe sitting on a small silver stand on a small shelf along the back wall. 

“Huh, a dozen brooms and one snow globe. Okay.” The sound of a bright laugh floating up from North caused Jack to flinch. He stared at the empty snow globe for several long seconds before reaching out and plucking it up in cold fingers. He stuffed it into his hoodie pocket before clicking the door shut and taking off out the window. The wind pulled at him, but Jack waved it off. Instead he shot off towards the arctic, the one place where he could safely throw some ice around without causing any trouble for anyone. Tears burned at his eyes, but Jack swore they were from going too fast in the wind, and the globe felt like a heavy, burning weight in his pocket. 

-

By the time Jack had landed in the frozen, snow encrusted desert he’d managed to properly stifle the urge to wail like a small child and buried it deep down inside his chest. He landed on the point of an outcropping rock and hunched over, feeling sick and unhappy. Shaking his head in frustration Jack pulled up his hood and proceeded to spend the next few hours slamming ice and frost into every surrounding surface, going until tiredness won out over the sick feeling. Jack dropped onto a pile of nearby snow and stared up the grey sky, arms splayed out to his sides and staff clattering down towards his feet. 

He wasn’t sure how long he laid there, staring upwards and drifting in and out of sleep. The wind did a pretty good job of knocking snow off of him and keeping him unburied so it wasn’t like he could even use that as some sort of timer. Eventually though Jack moved again. He pulled out the ball of clear smooth glass from his pocket to hold over his head and studied it. 

It was, Jack realized, really boring looking. The only thing interesting about it was that it was really warm. Warm enough that if he laid it in the snow next to him it would started to melt the snow. That was weird. Jack couldn’t recall any other snow globes being warm to the touch. 

“So you’ll take me anywhere huh?” Jack tossed the globe back and forth. “How about New York?” An image filled the snow globe - the Empire state building covered in snow. “Mm, is it snowing in New York? Alright how about Paris!” Notre Dame appeared. “Denmark, Australia, Atlantis, Japan.” Amalienborg, Eureka tower, an underwater tower, and Tokyo tower flashed through the globe in rapid succession. Jack gave a lopsided grin at the globe. 

“Okay, show off how about taking me someplace where I’ll be the most important someone, and get invited to all the parties, and have friends who wanna spend time with me.” His grin faded a bit as the tower faded away and nothing filled back up. He heaved a heavy sigh. “Right. Yeah no, I figured that. I just wish I had someone who was as excited to spend time with me and wanna play with me as I am with them.” To Jack’s surprise a black cloud bubbled up into view in the bauble, before slowly filtering through the different images of his friends homes. The tooth palace, North’s workshop, Sandy’s island, the warren, before settling finally on an empty snowfield. Jack stared, he hadn’t really expected it to show him anything. Jack frowned; the pictures had been weird - there hadn’t been any color showing through. And an empty snowfield? Yeah that looked exciting. Shrugging Jack rolled onto his feet, picking up his staff and staring at the globe. 

“Right. Well I guess why not. I mean. What’s the worse that could happen?” And with that, Jack tossed the globe down and jumped into the swirling, twisting portal that poured open.


	2. Let it snow, let it snow

Chapter 2:  
(Or that time it started to snow)

It felt like the magic inside the portal had rearranged Jack’s insides when it splat him back out on the other side. He tripped over a gust of wind and tumbled onto the snowy ground face first, his staff flumping next to him. The portal behind him made a slurping pop noise as it clicked closed. Groaning, he rolled over onto his back and stared in dismay at the now empty air. Normally when a portal closed a snow globe would reform - generally in the hand of whomever had thrown it. But, as Jack sat up and flexed his empty hand, no snow globe formed. He frowned down at his hands before shrugging. 

“Well, guess that means I’ll be taking the long way home.” A cold wind ruffled his hair in response. Pulling himself onto his feet and dusting his pants off, Jack used his toes to kick his staff up into his arms grinning as he managed to do so without needing the wind to hold him up. He finally focused on the area around him, spinning slowly around, his nose scrunching is annoyance. Everything, exactly everything, looked precisely the same as before he’d gone through the portal. 

Okay, sure some of the ice blocks might be at a different angle, but he hadn’t really been terribly focused on memorizing what direction the frost blasts had been growing in. But really, the general shape, size, and look of the place was the same, and aside from the lack of a warm snow globe in his pocket and a queasy feeling in his stomach it was like he’d never even gone through a portal. The only other thing that was maybe different was that it was dark, a thick hanging cloud cover blocking out the summer sun. Wind picked at his hoodie, tugging Jacks focus back on it. 

Despite what some people claim, wind didn’t actually have a voice or even much of a personality, it’s more of a reflection of whoever it happens to attach itself to. It did have a unique feel to it though, and normally the wind that followed Jack was blustery ball of cool air that liked to constantly be on the move. This wind felt the same, except it was most certainly colder feeling. Which, he supposed, wasn’t really unusual considering they were so far south. 

“What is it?” The wind pulled harder at him, pulling backwards and up. Jack laughed and rolled over into the breeze.

“Alright alright I’m coming, where ya going in such a hurry?” The winds response was to simply toss him up towards the clouds and blast him northwards, over miles of ice and snow. 

\- 

An hour later of flying Jack sloped downwards from the cloudcover and landed on the outcropping tip of an ice encrusted pile of rocks. Something was wrong. Jack frowned at the dark snow covered plain stretching out into the horizon. Wasn’t there supposed to be an ocean around here? Like, a big one? Jack hopped down, the snow crunching as he landed on it, and stabbed his staff through the outer bitter crust of the snow, exposing some softer powder beneath it. He kneeled and dug downward with his hands, lifting out fistfuls of perfect snowball snow and tossing it to the side. About a foot down Jack scrapped against ice; thick black ice that even when he stabbed it with his staff, showed nothing. He pounded on the exposed section a few more times before freezing in place and looking around wide-eyed. There was an ocean, it was just under all the snow. 

Jack sucked in a sharp breath, the amount of cold required to freeze ocean water was nothing to sneeze at and freezing this much water? It would have changed the weather of the surrounding land masses drastically, hell it would have changed the global weather drastically. That much magic being funneled about, surely he would have noticed it? Jack shook his head and leaped upwards, catching himself on a passing breeze. 

“WIND!” A rough blast of cold shredded through the soft breeze and picked him, raising him back up towards the clouds. 

“WHOA calm down! What’s going on? Why is there so much ice? Take me towards America!” The wind obliged, twisting to the left and merrily speeding them through the sky. The closer Jack got to the equator, the more his heart sank. The snow wasn’t melting. The scenery wasn’t changing, and while it was a little brighter from some sunlight managing to break through the puffy white clouds, there still wasn’t any blue from the sky or water. Jack wasn’t even sure if the line of ice-covered mountains he was following was the coastline for South America, aside from being taller than the covered black ice it was pretty much exactly the same as the fields from the arctic that he’d left a couple of hours ago.

-

300 hundred years of haunting a place, of watching it change and grow, gives a person a pretty good sense of where things are supposed to be. Even if none of the traditional landmarks that were supposed to be there were, that had been there almost as long as Jack had, were nowhere to be found. Jack landed tiredly on the top of a shaggy, dead looking pine tree. He was about two hours away from Burgess, his home, in a larger city. Or what was supposed to be a city. There was nothing there, except for snow and a couple of trees. It was dark again, the cloud cover having regrouped the farther north he got. Mountains that were supposed to be towering over him seemed relatively short and and oddly squat, the forest that surrounded the city was gone, and the city? Not there. There was a space that looked like it might have held a city, but nothing was there; just hills of snow and ice spikes. 

Jack was startled out his brooding by a sparkling laugh floating on the wind. He jerked his head back and forth trying to figure out where it had come from when a packed freezing snowball slammed into his back and sent him sprawling face first into the snow at the foot of his tree.  
“Ugh” He shook his head, trying to rub the snow out of his when the wind pushed him over onto his side. Jack swung his staff and shattered the next oncoming snowball before it smashed into him. He grunted a thanks to wind while jumping up and slamming an ice bolt into the next couple of snowballs pelted in his direction. 

A flash of blue to the right of him focused his attention and he shot an ice spike towards it. A cry of dismay and a crashing noise filled the air and Jack carefully crept forwards, his staff at the ready. 

“Geez, what are you doing? I was just trying to play with you and you totally threw ice at me! Don’t you know that snowballs are supposed to be soft.” A female voice huffed in irritation behind him. Jacks eyes widen as he spun about, how had she moved so fast? His retort died in his throat though as he stared at the figure wiping ice off of her pants. A figure in a blue-hoodie, wearing white ankle length pants that were tied together with a variety of brown belts. A figure holding a shepherd's crook covered in ice and had short, spiky white hair ruffled about as wind attempted to help get the ice off. She had blue eyes and pink cheeks and when she finally looked back up at him to figure out what his problem was, a pretty pink mouth frowned. 

“Who are you?” She demanded. 

“Jack. Who are you?!” She stomped her foot in irritation.

“No I’m Jack. Who are you?” Her eyes narrowed as she focused on his face. “Why do you look like me?”

Jack shook his head slowly, his eyes wide and breathing heavy. This wasn’t right this couldn’t whatwhatwhat -. Wind pushed at him, and Jack swallowed, trying to get his breathing back under control. A niggling thought slipped through the back of his mind, something about snow globes. 

“Jack, my name is Jack too.” He swallowed. “I think I’m inside the snow globe.” She frowned in confusion.

“Well we both can’t be Jack. What’s a snow globe? What are you talking about? I KNOW, I’ll call you J2. Kay J2? Now tell me what’s going on!” Jack pointed at him and stomped her foot once more. “Tell me tell me tell me!” She was practically vibrating and big, fat snowflakes had started falling around her, the louder she got the harder they fell. 

“Okay!” Jack, or J2, held his hands up defensively. “I stole a snow globe from North’s place and wished to be someplace else. It opened up a portal and now I’m here. In a world covered in snow, with you. I don’t know why though - they’re only supposed to take you other places not … other freaky worlds.” He rubbed the back of head, scowling at the snow. 

Jack’s eyes widened as J2 explained. She took a step forward, but instead of being a step closer she was instead standing nose to nose with him. J2 yelped and took a step back. 

“how did you -”

“You made a wish to come visit me?” Jack tilted her head to the side, studying J2 carefully. “And you stole something from North to do it? Wow. That’s… so sweet.” A wide smile split her face, he was here to see her - to play with her! And here she’d thrown a snowball at him! He’d stolen something from that freak and now he was here and oh!

Jack took another step back away from the strange girl, she was looking at him like he was something tasty to eat. A creepy smile on her face and wide glossy eyes stared at him unblinking. “Well, not specifically you just uh, someone to play with? I think.” He hesitated before something else clicked. “North? You know North?”

“Well duh, everyone knows North.” She rolled her eyes, maybe he’d hit his head when he’d fallen out of that tree earlier. Well, that was still okay. A soft-headed playmate was still a playmate. “Come on!” She latched a frigid hand onto his arm. “You came to play with me right? So lets go play a game! Not here though, ‘cause here is lame. Lets go over to old fort! That’s a great place to play!” She yanked him towards a particularly iced-over looking mountain. Jack jerked on his arm, to pull himself away, but she had an iron grip. 

“But I need to -” 

“NO! Play with me!” She pulled again, but this time Jack let her lead him. Well he had asked for a friend. And she had said she knew North, so if he stuck with her he might be able to get back to his place and find another snow globe. It bothered him a little how they resembled each other so much, but it only made his head hurt if he thought about too much. 

The snowfall had lightened up, and the flakes that still fell was tossed about by the wind as it lead the two snow spirits along an invisible path. As they left silence fell over the field, and in the shadow of the tall pine tree, a pair of golden eyes stared after them as they tousled each other about playfully.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Do you ever have an idea in your head and you start writing and then the characters take it into the completely different direction and than all of a sudden you're completely lost and not sure what's happening even though it's YOUR story? ;3;
> 
> Next chapter:   
> _Jack stared down at the dark gaping hole in the floor. She giggled next to him and nudged him with her elbow. "Well go on! You're not scared are ya?"_

**Author's Note:**

> First official story on AO3! Yay!
> 
> So as a forewarning - I’m normally a horror author, so some (read: all) of my stuff tends to head in darker directions. Just keep that in mind as more chapters get tossed up. Anything that’s triggery I’ll add tags and post a warning at the beginning of the chapter. There are a couple of relationships I’ve got planned but nothing is set in stone. 
> 
> This particular Jack is 13ish, so he’s just a baby. I’ll try to be gentle. 
> 
> Thank you for reading!


End file.
